The Redemption Of
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The Redemption of Eve Jolene Edmunds Rockwood(1) I am Eve, the wife of noble Adam; it was I who violated Jesus in the past; it was I who robbed my children of heaven; it is I by right who should have been crucified. I had heaven at my command; evil the bad choice that shamed me; evil the punishment for my crime that has aged me; alas, my hand is not pure. It was I who plucked the apple; it went past the narrow of my gullet; as long as they live in daylight women will not cease from folly on account of that. There would be no ice in any place; there would be no bright windy winter; there would be no hell, there would be no grief, there would be no terror but for me. Anonymous, Old Irish1(2) For over two thousand years, since the first commentary on Genesis was presented, Eve has been blamed for woes ranging from the origin of sin to the presumed inferiority of the female sex. Because of Eve, women have been cursed, their subordination to man has been justified, and their feminine weaknesses have been stereotyped. Much of this tradition has been so engrained in our Judeo-Christian culture that we are often unaware of its presence or its origin. Yet if it were possible to eradicate all our culturally induced prejudices about Eve and examine the original Hebrew text of the whole Eden account, we would find a story that actually says very little of what it has throughout the centuries been credited with saying. Let us first see how a few commentators have interpreted the Genesis 1-3 account in various time periods.2(3) Then we will look at the Hebrew text of the Adam and Eve story. Finally we will compare this new perspective with other sources of particular relevance to Latter-day Saints. Whatever meaning the Adam and Eve story had to Old Testament Israelites is unknown, for after Genesis 5 it is not referred to again throughout the rest of the Old Testament canon.3(4) There is no indication, at least until post-exilic times, that the story had any major impact on Israelite customs or worship comparable to the exodus from Egypt, for instance, or God's covenant with Abraham. Unfortunately, no other contemporaneous records survive to illuminate the intent of the author at the time Genesis 1-3 was written. The earliest documents available after the Genesis account itself were early Jewish writings dating from about 400 B.C. to the latter part of the first Christian century.4(5) The Midrash and Talmud (some of these early writings) established in Jewish culture the use of the Adam and Eve account of Genesis to justify the roles of men and women. At the time these were written, the Jews believed that Eve, because she was formed from Adam's rib, was a secondary creation, thus subject to and inferior to Adam. Although in Judaism a woman was honored in her role as mother, she had little or no role in public worship. In the synagogues, men and women worshipped in separate chambers to prevent the women from "distracting" the men, a tradition referring back to the image of Eve as temptress. As woman was the cause of Adam's fall, so also a woman's voice in a religious meeting would tempt a man away from higher worship.5(6) It was the woman's duty to listen but not respond or be seen. Even some of the religious rituals a woman conducted in the home became her responsibility because of Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden. The woman, for example, was to light the New Mormon Studies CD-ROM Page1 ©1998 Smith Research Associates candles to begin the Sabbath observance because it was woman who originally "extinguished the light of man's soul."6(7) When she kneaded dough, it was her responsibility to separate out a "heave" offering (the best portions of the sacrificial animal which historically were set aside for Yahweh and the priests before the sacrifice was made) to make amends for Eve's defiling Adam, who was "the heave offering of the world."7(8) A woman "acquired merit" by encouraging her husband and sons to study the Torah, but "whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as though he taught her obscenity," and "let the words of the Torah rather be destroyed by fire than imparted to women," because "a woman has no learning except in the use of the spindle."8(9) The men were encouraged to leave their wives at home and "go into the marketplace and learn intelligence from other men," because women, by nature of their creation, were intellectually and physically inferior to men.9(10) The Midrash records that God deliberated long in deciding which part of the body he would use to make the wife of Adam, but "in spite of the great caution used, woman has all the faults God tried to obviate"—including haughtiness, eavesdropping, wantonness, and jealousy. These characteristics were seen as evident not only in Eve but also in Sarah, "an eavesdropper in her own tent"; Miriam, "a talebearer" who accused Moses; Rachel, who was "envious" of Leah; and Dinah, who was "a gadabout."10(11) At their first meeting Adam perceived these pernicious qualities in Eve and knew she would "seek to carry her point with man either by entreaties and tears, or flattery and caresses."11(12) The Midrash also derives other qualities of women from that primeval rib. For example, women need to use perfumes and men do not because "dust of the ground remains the same no matter how long it is kept; flesh, however, requires salt to keep it in good condition." Women's voices are high and "shrill" and men's are not because "when soft viands are cooked, no sound is heard, but let a bone be put in a pot, and at once it crackles." Women are rigid and not easily placated like men because "a few drops of water suffice to soften a clod of earth" but "a bone stays hard" and will not soften in water. It is the man who proposes marriage and not the woman because man lost his rib and must find a woman to retrieve it. And finally, "women precede men in a funeral cortege, because it was woman who brought death into the world."12(13) Jews prayed for sons and celebrated when they were born. No corresponding celebration marked the birth of a daughter. "The world cannot exist without males and females," a Rabbinical dictum states, "but happy is he whose children are sons and woe to him whose children are daughters."13(14) "The Lord bless thee with sons and keep thee from daughters" were the words of the Priestly Benediction.14(15) According to Israelite law, after childbirth a woman must not touch any sacred relic or enter any sacred place until she was "purified." If her child was male, this period was forty days; for a daughter, purification required twice as long, eighty days. The pseudepigraphal book of Jubilees explained the discrepancy by maintaining that the creation of Adam and Eve took place in the first week, but Adam did not see Eve for two weeks. Adam entered Eden after forty days; Eve did not enter Eden for eighty days.15(16) And, finally, to be born male was itself reason to give thanks daily: "A man is obliged to offer three benedictions daily; that He has made me an Israelite, that He has not made me a woman, that He has not made me a boor."16(17) This bias against women reflected the theology that Eve was solely responsible for the transgression in Eden and that, because of her role in the Fall, all women were subjugated to New Mormon Studies CD-ROM Page2 ©1998 Smith Research Associates men, who were held blameless as Adam. In the apocryphal book of Sirach, probably written sometime between 300 and 275 B.C., we read the following scathing treatise on the nature of a wicked woman: Any wound, only not a heart-wound! Any wickedness, only not the wickedness of a woman!… There is no poison above the poison of a serpent, And there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman… I would rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, Than keep house with a wicked woman… (There is but) little malice like the malice of a woman, May the lot of the wicked fall upon her!… From a woman did sin originate, And because of her we all must die.17(18) The author thus blames Eve as the ultimate source for a woman's wickedness but sees Adam far differently: "above every living thing was the beauteous glory of Adam."18(19) The view is not atypical. The book of Jubilees refers to Adam as a great patriarch linked with Enoch and Noah. So does 1 Enoch. The "Apocalypsis Mosis" and "Vita Adae et Evae" in "The Books of Adam and Eve" and 2 Enoch all suggest that in Eden Eve transgressed sexually with the serpent then seduced Adam, the innocent victim of Eve's deception.19(20) Thus, in the Jewish writings which emerged between the end of the Old Testament period and the first centuries after Christ, the Genesis Adam and Eve account was used by many commentators to justify cultural practices, explain, or even create, sexual characteristics, and define roles of men and women.